The Duke of Sussex has lost a legal challenge to the British government’s decision to downgrade his security arrangements while in the United Kingdom.
Prince Harry, the younger son of King Charles, had been seeking to overturn a UK High Court ruling last year over the decision by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC) to downgrade his security.
Delivering his verdict on Friday, judge Geoffrey Vos said the arguments presented by the duke’s barrister, Shaheed Fatima, were “powerful and moving” and that it was “plain that the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated by the system.”
However, after studying all of the relevant documentation, Vos concluded that the duke’s sense of grievance did not translate into a legal argument for the challenge to RAVEC’s decision.
The case was deeply personal to Harry, who has previously expressed how important it is for him to ensure his family has security when they visit the UK.
For the duke, there has been a sense of not wanting history to repeat itself, and he has frequently drawn comparisons between his wife Meghan’s treatment to that faced by his mother, Diana. The late Princess of Wales died in 1997 after suffering internal injuries resulting from a high-speed car crash in Paris, while being pursued by paparazzi.
RAVEC changed Harry’s protection status in February 2020 after he and Meghan stepped down as working members of the British royal family and instead revealed their plans to split their time between the UK and North America.
Last year, retired High Court judge Peter Lane refused to allow a judicial review of the RAVEC roll-back, as requested by Harry, concluding that the committee’s approach was not irrational or unlawful, and “there was no procedural unfairness.”
Harry, 40, returned to the UK for the two-day hearing at the Court of Appeals in London in April. In that hearing, Fatima argued the judge had been mistaken and that that the duke had been “singled out for different unjustified and inferior treatment” by the committee.
She told the panel of three judges in the appeals court that the body opted for “a different and so-called ‘bespoke’ process” but “the appellant (Harry) does not accept that ‘bespoke’ means ‘better.’”
James Eadie laid out the arguments on behalf of the Home Office, the ministry responsible for RAVEC, telling the court that the decision had never been to withdraw the duke’s security, but rather that it “would not be provided on the same basis as before.”
He said the decision had been made because of Harry’s transition from being a working royal and living overseas, arguing that this approach better served the fifth-in-line to the throne.
Harry has revealed fears for his family’s safety repeatedly over the years. The duke has spoken previously of wanting to return to the UK more frequently, telling the High Court in December 2023 that the country is “central to the heritage of my children” and that he wants them to “feel at home” there as much as in the United States.
[BBC]